Stocks moved slightly lower in early trading Monday as major indexes enter the final week of August on track for their fourth straight month of gains.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) and S&P 500 (SPX) were down 0.2% recently, while the Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) fell 0.3%. Stocks surged on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the central bank could cut interest rates as soon as next month. The Dow hit its first record closing high since December, while the S&P 500 finished just shy of a new high.
Stocks have been boosted this month by investor hopes for rate cuts, reduced concerns about the potential impact of tariffs and generally strong corporate earnings reports. Coming into today’s session, the benchmark S&P 500 index was up 2% in August, while the Dow had gained 3.4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had tacked on 1.8%.
The big event on the calendar this week will be the quarterly earnings report from AI chips giant Nvidia (NVDA), scheduled for Wednesday after the closing bell. Nvidia shares were down 0.3% in early trading.
Other mega-cap tech stocks were mixed. Shares of Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms (META) and Tesla (TSLA) fell slightly, while Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and Broadcom (AVGO) ticked higher.
Shares of Intel (INTC) were up nearly 2%, after jumping more than 5% on Friday following news that the struggling chipmaker had agreed to sell a 10% stake to the U.S. government.
Crypto-related stocks were losing ground as the price of bitcoin tumbled after rallying Friday amid the renewed optimism about possible rate cuts. Shares of Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, dropped 4% this morning, while those of crypto exchange Coinbase Global (COIN) were down 3%.
Bitcoin was at $111,300 recently, down from around $117,000 late Friday afternoon and trading at its lowest levels since early July.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which affects borrowing costs on all sorts of loans, was at 4.29% this morning, up from 4.26% at Friday’s close. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the performance of the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, rose 0.2% to 97.90.
West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, advanced 1% to $64.30 per barrel, gaining ground for the fourth straight day after after falling to their lowest levels since early June early last week. Gold futures were down 0.3% at $3,410 an ounce.